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Imagine you have just returned from maternity leave, still nursing your baby, and you find that your workplace has no place available for you to pump breast milk. After trying for several hours to find a place, you ask for help from your department head, who says “You know, I think it’s best that you just go home to be with your babies.” She hands you a pen and paper, advises you to resign, and even dictates what you should write down as your letter of resignation.

This is exactly what Angela Ames, a Loss Mitigation Representative at Nationwide Insurance, alleges happened to her when she returned to work eight-weeks after having her second child.

To begin with, as soon as she got to work, she found another employee’s belongings at her workspace—not exactly a warm welcome. When she informed her department head that she needed a place to pump, she said that was “not her job,” and sent her to the company nurse. The nurse told her that she couldn’t use the company’s lactation room because the company needed three days to processes her “paperwork”—a policy no one had shared with her prior to her return. The nurse advised her that she could try to pump in a room that was frequently used by sick employees with no lock on the door that was currently in use—she should check back in 15-20 minutes.

Last night the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision refusing to block a Texas law that has forced more than one third of the women’s health centers to stop providing abortion. The Court reached its decision despite the fact that the law is having devastating effects on women in the three weeks that it’s been in place. Women have been turned away from clinics. They are frustrated, angry, and in tears. In large parts of the state, including the Rio Grande Valley, there is no abortion provider. One woman whose appointment at a Harlingen health center was cancelled said that she did not have the money to travel north, and she ...

By Brigitte Amiri, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project

Last night the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision refusing to block a Texas law that has forced more than one third of the women’s health centers to stop providing ...

This year, anti-choice forces coordinated a nationwide attack on reproductive rights. From Arkansas to North Dakota, Texas to North Carolina, the goal is clear: banning abortion completely.

And today the fight has come to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where these anti-choice extremists have put an abortion ban on the ballot. The ballot measure would ban abortion after 20 weeks, a point at which a woman might find out that something has gone seriously wrong with the pregnancy.

Attacking reproductive rights at the city level is just the latest tactic in the ongoing War on Women. If this experiment works in Albuquerque you can believe radical forces will try to export this tactic to other states.

So ...

By Hayley Smith, ACLU Advocacy and Policy Associate

This year, anti-choice forces coordinated a nationwide attack on reproductive rights. From Arkansas to North Dakota, Texas to North Carolina, the goal is clear: banning abortion completely.

On January 24, 2013, we saw a great victory for U.S. servicewomen when the Department of Defense announced it was ending the ban on women serving in combat units and occupational specialties. As the Pentagon and the armed services begin implementing the change in policy, there are many issues that must be resolved, and we’ll be keeping a close eye on the process. In an ongoing blog series, we will bring you voices of military experts, veterans, and other stakeholders who will discuss these issues and the need to fully integrate women in the armed forces.

Should companies be able to patent human genes? Today, the Supreme Court answered that profound question with a resounding NO.

Seems like common sense, right? But over the last 30 years, the U.S. Patent Office has issued patents on thousands of human genes, including genes associated with colon cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, muscular dystrophy, and many other devastating diseases. The status quo meant that companies controlling gene patents had the right to stop all other scientists from examining, studying, testing, and researching our genes.

The case before the Court involved patents on two genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, controlled by a Utah-based company named Myriad Genetics. We all have these genes, but people with certain ...

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act. On June 10, 1963, Congress enacted the first law to require employers to pay women the same salaries that they pay men. When the law was enacted, I was not quite one month old.

My mother fought for passage of the EPA. She brought me, her newborn baby, to a march on Washington to demand equal pay for women. My childhood was permeated with debates about “Women’s Lib.” Although she, like my father, was a university professor, prior to passage of the EPA, Columbia University could pay her less than it paid my dad, simply because she was a woman. Passage of the Equal ...

By Lenora M. Lapidus, Women’s Rights Project, ACLU

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act. On June 10, 1963, Congress enacted the first law to require employers to pay women the same salaries that they ...

When Donnicia Venters disclosed to her manager as she was preparing to return to work after her maternity leave that she was breastfeeding and would need a place to pump breast milk, she was met with silence. And then told that her “spot ha[d] been filled.”

When the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission tried to sue on her behalf, a federal district court judge dismissed her case, on the ground that firing someone because she is breastfeeding is not sex discrimination. This is despite clear language in federal antidiscrimination law prohibiting employers from discriminating against workers based on “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.” The judge’s reasoning: lactation was not a “condition related ...

By Galen Sherwin, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Women’s Rights Project

When Donnicia Venters disclosed to her manager as she was preparing to return to work after her maternity leave that she was breastfeeding and would need a place ...

This week, an Ohio federal jury awarded Christa Dias $171,000 after she was fired from her part-time teaching jobs at two religious schools. Dias had alleged that she was fired for becoming pregnant while unmarried. In response, the schools and the Archdiocese of Cincinnati had claimed that her use of artificial insemination violated Catholic religious tenets and was a valid reason for firing her. In its verdict, the jury specifically found that Dias was the victim of pregnancy discrimination.

The verdict is an important victory for both workers’ rights and the rights of parents and families. It affirms that the law protects workers’ freedom to make decisions about their reproductive lives ...

By Mie Lewis, Staff Attorney for the ACLU Women’s Rights Project

This week, an Ohio federal jury awarded Christa Dias $171,000 after she was fired from her part-time teaching jobs at two religious schools. Dias had alleged that ...